Perhaps, then, the attempt to define a broad dialect area is unhelpful, as all dialect features will show different distributional patterns, meaning that an
isogloss for a dialect region is dependent on which features are selected for analysis, as stated by Davis (2000: 257): "dialect areas are, in large measure, a function of the items one selects, and that changing those items even slightly can result in very different sets of boundaries".
In the case of
isogloss mapping in particular, lines are drawn based on researchers' decisions about the location of observed data points (Kirk, Sanderson, and Widdowson 1985; Ormeling 1992).
It is an ambiguous
isogloss as UE2 and CA share 1sg.
97 (2)), Kent is outside the area enclosed by the
isogloss which marks this change to i- in the map.
Yet pur alone seems to be sufficient to establish the Northwestern position of Gurgani for this
isogloss.
The
isogloss for SVO also embraces Cambodian/Khmer (where the morphology is largely moribund) and Indonesian-Malay and some other Austronesian languages of the area.
On
isogloss bundles and their frequent correlation with cultural traits, see Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 94-96, 100-102.
If an expression exceptional to the other Finnic dialects occurs in Finnish or North Estonian dialects, its
isogloss often approximates the boundary of the language, e.
That
isogloss is also the one least constrained by data, except in Berks/Oxon (Kitson 1993: 16).
For years, when linguists compared the verbal
isogloss yenager vs.
247): It is not the superlative suffix *-mmo- but the conglomerate superlative suffix *-is-mmo- that is a distinctive Italo-Celtic
isogloss.
That is, beyond this one important
isogloss, there is nothing uniquely "North African" about Upper Egyptian Arabic.
